Chapter 1 #2
My father’s face turned a sickly pallor. Whatever hold this man had over him, it scared my father to his core.
As the properly raised daughter of a hotel magnate, I shook his outstretched hand despite every alarm bell going off in my head.
The moment our skin touched, heat shot up my arm. His palm was fever-hot, burning against mine like he’d been standing too close to a fire. No one ran that hot naturally. But he showed no signs of fever, just that impossible warmth radiating from his skin like he burned from the inside out.
He held on a moment longer than necessary, his grip firm but not painful. The pad of his thumb traced across the back of my hand, slow and unhurried, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
Something stirred low in my belly. Something I didn’t want to examine too closely.
I caught a hint of his scent. Leather and sandalwood, rich and dark, with something underneath I couldn’t name. Something that made my pulse quicken.
“Thank you. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Antonov.” My voice came out steadier than I felt.
“Please. Raphael.” His gaze tracked my movements even though his head never turned.
That unsettling awareness again, like he could sense exactly where I was without needing to look.
“I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other.
I have a feeling your father and I are going to reach an understanding. One way or another.”
His thumb traced one final circle on my palm before he released me. The gesture felt deliberate. Possessive. Like he was marking territory.
“Such soft skin.” His voice dropped to a murmur only I could hear. “I wonder if it marks as easily as it blushes.”
He turned to my father, but his final words were clearly meant for me to hear.
My palm tingled where he’d touched me. I resisted the urge to rub it against my jeans.
“I will give you time to reconsider my offer, Richard.” His eyes slid to me for just a moment, a look that made my skin prickle with awareness. “Though I should mention, my patience has limits. And the longer you make me wait, the more… creative my terms become.”
Was that a threat? I had no idea what type of business my father was involved in with this man, but my gut told me he was dangerous in ways I couldn’t name. The kind of dangerous that made you want to run. The kind that made some traitorous part of you want to stay.
The elevator arrived. The doors opened with a ding that echoed in the silent hallway.
Saved by the bell.
“No need for an escort. I know the way out.” Raphael paused at the elevator doors and turned back to look at me.
His eyes traveled down my body, slow and thorough, lingering in ways that made heat rise to my cheeks.
When his gaze returned to my face, he smiled.
It wasn’t a kind smile. It was the smile of a man who’d just seen something he intended to acquire.
“Until we meet again, Lena. I look forward to knowing you… better.”
The doors closed behind him.
I didn’t exhale until they did.
“What was that about, Papa?”
“Nothing you need to worry your pretty head about, Lena.” He cupped my cheeks and gave me a warm smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Have you been good today? You haven’t been bothering the staff?”
Whoever that man was, he obviously wasn’t up for discussion.
“Of course not. I’ve been sorting what I want to bring with me to the dorms.” Even though I was legally an adult, my father still treated me like the little girl who used to run around the hotel playing hide and seek with the housekeeping staff.
The phone in his office rang, demanding his attention.
I smiled at him. Business beckoned. My father never had a day off. “I’ll let you get back to work. I still have a lot of packing to do.”
I rode the elevator up to the private apartment I shared with my father. The top floor was reserved for the presidential suite, but we had the entire floor below it to ourselves and a 360-degree view overlooking Paradise Peaks.
The deliciously warm and sweet aroma of freshly baked oatmeal raisin cookies greeted me as soon as I walked through the front door.
Following my nose, I found our housekeeper humming a familiar melody as she drizzled icing over rows of cookies on a cooling rack.
“That smells like delicious contraband, Marjorie.”
I grabbed one of the cookies and took a big bite. Moaning in contentment, I savored the buttery rich sugar on my tongue.
“If your father asks, this is a healthy, well-balanced meal.”
“How do you figure?”
“Oatmeal is high in fiber and good for heart health. There’s enough raisins for several servings of fruit. And cinnamon has been proven to lower blood sugar levels.” She ticked off each point on her flour-dusted fingers. “All very healthy and balanced.”
I nodded sagely at her logic.
“I’m sure Papa will agree.” I popped the last bite into my mouth and grabbed another cookie off the rack. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Marjorie. You’re a lifesaver.”
Marjorie had worked for our family since before I was born. After my mother’s death, she was the closest thing I had to a maternal figure. She was as much family as if she were my real grandmother.
I walked into my room and grimaced at the mountain of clothes still piled on my bed. On the floor beside it, my half-packed suitcase taunted me. This was going to be my first time living away from home, and part of me wanted to take everything.
Fishing out my bikini, I tossed it back onto the pile. Wouldn’t need it. The beaches in Huntington Harbor were covered in hard pebbles with frigid cold waters. Not a lot of sunbathing in my future.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose.
I froze, my hand still outstretched toward the clothing pile.
Slowly, I turned and looked out my bedroom window. The lake below. The tall pine trees surrounding it. I scanned the tree line, the shoreline, the shadows between the pines.
Something was watching me.
Not just watching. Hunting.
The feeling was primal. Animal. Like prey sensing a predator hidden in the brush. My heart beat faster, my breathing shallow. Every nerve ending sparked with the urge to run, hide, make myself small.
But run from what? Hide from what?
The day was calm and windless, the surface of the lake smooth as a mirror. Nothing moved in the forests. No birds startled from the trees. No deer emerged from the underbrush. The silence felt intentional. Heavy. Like the woods themselves were holding their breath.
In the distance, mountain peaks wore white snow tops that wouldn’t melt until late summer. The view was the same one I’d looked at my entire life.
So why did it suddenly feel like something was looking back?
I shook my head. The hotel had one-way windows. My room was too high up for anything to be visible from ground level. I was being ridiculous. Paranoid. Too much time spent watching true crime documentaries with Sophie.
I forced myself to turn away from the window.
But the feeling didn’t fade. It clung to my skin like a static charge, like the air before a storm. That prickling awareness that something had changed. That something was coming.
Despite the sinking sensation in my belly, there was no way anybody out there could see into my room.
No way at all.